Centro chair’s debt disconnect

Centro
chairman
Paul Cooper
didn’t connect his understanding of Centro’s short-term debt with the misstatement of Centro’s liabilities in its 2007 accounts.

Mr Cooper, who now chairs the main listed entity Centro Properties Group, had joined the property company’s board just one year before it struck trouble in late 2007.

Along with seven other current and former Centro directors and executives, Mr Cooper is fighting allegations he breached his duties when he approved Centro’s faulty accounts that year.

Questioned by Mark Derham, QC, for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Mr Cooper acknowledged he was aware that Centro had about $2.5 billion maturing in short-term obligations when he looked over its preliminary accounts in August 2007. Mr Cooper agreed with Mr Derham that he didn’t make the connection between what he knew and what appeared in Centro’s preliminary accounts.

Centro’s preliminary accounts did not record the company as having any current liabilities. Its final accounts, lodged with ASIC at the end of September 2007, revealed it had $1.1 billion in short-term debt.

The Centro defendants are due to finish testifying this week. Justice John Middleton will then hear arguments on why they should be held responsible, not the experts they relied on.